Ira Rifkin
By Ira Rifkin
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Community The day my son’s ashes arrived in the mail
The ashes came to my home in Maryland from Southern California, shipped via special delivery by the aptly named funeral home Ashes to Ashes. They arrived encased in a rectangular, polished, dark wood box about the size of a loaf of artisan bread. I immediately opened it to make sure it was not empty. It…
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News The Roots Of the Concord
Squeeze a Concord grape, and it practically screams kosher wine. Jelly sweet, the much maligned Concord has been the traditional kosher wine of choice at American Passover Seders for what seems like forever. So brace yourself for irony: The Concord has a suspected antisemitic horticultural past. Before there was Schapiro’s, the first American kosher vintner,…
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Opinion The Long Way Home to Lhasa
Tibet would seem to have little history in common with Israel. Yet much like Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple, today Tibetans face the daunting task of preserving their religious culture and national dreams while facing an indeterminate exile. The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled political and cultural leader, is well aware of the…
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News How Celia Cruz Saved an Amazon Night
I came of age at just the right time to enjoy Celia Cruz — the greatest female singer salsa has ever produced — in her prime, and for her to help shape my lifelong musical tastes. Without her knowing it, she once helped get me out of a frightening situation in a drug-saturated Peruvian river…
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Opinion I’m a UCLA professor. Why didn’t the administration stop last night’s egregious violence?
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Fast Forward Marjorie Taylor Greene says she opposed antisemitism bill because it rejects ‘Gospel’ that ‘the Jews’ handed Jesus to executioners
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Opinion I teach Israel studies at NYU. We are importing the worst of Israel and Palestine to our campuses
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News ‘Everyone gets to be uncomfortable’: How Jewish students at Brown kept antisemitism at bay
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Fast Forward Next up for congressional antisemitism hearings: NYC’s public schools
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Fast Forward A new dark comedy asks a serious question: Was Bulgaria’s King Boris III a friend or a foe of the Jews?
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Fast Forward ‘Hinds Hall,’ Macklemore’s new rap track, defends pro-Palestinian college protests and condemns Israel
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Fast Forward Robert Kraft’s foundation to air ad slamming antisemitism at campus protests during NBA playoffs